Bogs and hags

Vacation blog number 2:

The Campsies are a long line of low hills (500 m scale) that run east-west to the north of Glasgow. For a long time I've thought a walk right across the Campsies might be fun. From the Crow Road above Lennoxtown one could walk right across the summits of Holehead and Earl's Seat to Dumgoyne and Strathblane. The end point of this walk would be a long way from the start but buses serve both ends so it could be a nice expedition by public transport, leaving the car at home.

I'm on vacation this week and decided to give this expedition a go. I was amazed to discover that First bus combine a requirement for exact change with a reluctance to tell you fares outside Glasgow, at least on their website. Fortunately I had enough change when I boarded the X85 bus to Campsie Glen.

Campsie Glen is a bit of a beauty spot with its little waterfalls and shady spots along the burn, and an interesting geological excursion from Glasgow. From there I made my way via the Crow Road onto the hill to its west and up to the trig point and radar station on the summit called Holehead. I'd been there before, but in winter. By this point I was beginning to realise why nobody ever talks about this obvious cross-country route. The terrain of the Campsies is boggy, tussocky, very rough. Progress is painstaking and slow. To these unappealing features we can add in summer swarms of black flies whose only saving grace was the lack of a bite.

Holehead marked only the start of the intended high traverse, but Earl's Seat, after which I could expect easier ground and better-trodden paths, looked many slow, boggy miles away.

Nobody ever does this route because it's pretty unpleasant.

However the beautiful views among these hills, over their rolling plateaux to all the familiar, bigger summits to the north, or to Glasgow to the south, are a big compensation.

Most of the named hills among the Campsies - Hog Hill, Hart Hill, Holehead - barely deserve to be called "summits". They're more like the highest swellings of a gently undulating plateau. Just north and east of Hart Hill I came across the roughest terrain of all: peat hags as high as yourself embedded in bog. To traverse this area you have to climb over or round the hags while avoiding the really wet boggy bits; the sort of bogs that wobble if you stand on them, into which you can disappear if you're not careful. Desperate. Wild. However I was most of the way to Earl's Seat before I finally, inevitably, stepped into a hidden, boggy hole up to my thigh.

The distance is not huge and there is little descent and re-ascent but the terrain is so demanding that my arrival at Earl's Seat's grassy summit felt like a real achievement, with the continuing views along the Campsies' northern escarpment a further reward. A few more bogs still had to be negotiated but progress from here was mostly much more civilised.

A descent by Dumgoyne followed by the charms of the "water road" led me to Strathblane and the bus back into Glasgow (another fare mystery until I actually spoke to the driver, but at least he was ready to give change). Eager thoughts of beer came to nothing in the face of the "closed for refurbishment" signs on the Kirkhouse Inn; seemed appropriate somehow.

If you know Glasgow you might have started this thinking, "right across the Campsies, what a great idea." It's not. If you do it it's against my advice. Enjoy the well-known walks from the popular car parks at either end. The middle of the Campsies is a crazy place, a land for masochists, neglected for good reasons. What does it say about me that, at least in retrospect, I enjoyed this day a lot?

Last week my wife and I spent in Amsterdam, very different surroundings. The summary of my day on the Campsies sounds like a firm of Amsterdam solicitors: Bogs and Hags.

Images are copyright A MacKinnon.